Tuesday, June 22, 2010

We already knew that Randall loathed the media. Just a few weeks ago he was complaining about coverage of the recent Gulf oil spill, and last year he complained so ineptly about coverage of some now-forgotten Wall Street scandal that I was forced to get very angry.

On the flip side, we've also been subjected to reminders that Randall is hep to the new media: he's dropped references to slashdot, the Daily Show, and, in one epic namedrop of a comic, BBC, BoingBoing, Reddit and Five Thirty Eight. As far as I know, he has never referred to any element of the MSM in a positive light (if i'm wrong, let me know, i'll post a correction). update: being a stupid person, I missed that he also included cnn.com in that list of websites he reads. Not particularly positive, but given the same context as the others he mentions. So, I'd say I was basically wrong.

That's fine, he can have opinions, and it's not like hating the media is all that unusual. But, like any political (broadly defined) cause, complaining too often tends to get annoying. I also find that in many cases, people who are very committed to a cause like this tend to have terrible senses of humor about this sort of thing (or occasionally they will have great senses of humor, but rarely in the middle). Alas, this comic seems to be a case of substituting an argument for a joke.

The character in this comic is pretty much the definition of a straw man: He represents the group that Randall doesn't like, and rather than quote them, he makes up a quote that is silly in the most obvious but perfect way. Yes, he's satirizing what he thinks is a common phenomenon, but he's doing it by just making the people involved act like they have the intelligence of wood.

Compare this to another, hypothetical comedy outlet, a daily show, if you will. On this daily show, a host would play video clips of members of the media saying silly things, perhaps contradictory ones. The difference between this comic and the daily show is that the daily show plays (ahem, would theoretically play) actual clips. As in, not putting words in anyone's mouths. That's what makes it funny - anyone can pretend that a person said something dumb. What's far better is seeing that person actually say it.

This is true for the first half of the comic as well: Unless "a leading politician" actually said what this comic claims he said, the whole thing is really just a manufactured story. Again, if he is referring to something specific, I will admit that I'm wrong, but the incredible vagueness of "a leading politician" makes me think otherwise.

Now, many of you might say, "man, he's making fun of a common thing, so he's making up an example but it could have easily been any number of actual examples." To which I say: Well, why not use an actual example? It will be funnier by virtue of being true, and it won't smack of "angry man making up a quote" the way this comic does.

And Last, the alt text's comparison is actually not that bad, if you live in a universe where the people on the Titanic were screaming with delight.

First off I'd like to say that I hated this comic - it didn't get so much as a smirk out of me and usually xkcd can generate at least a half-hearted chuckle.

Secondly I don't think that you really caught the joke (at least I didn't see it mentioned in the critique). As far as I can tell the premise is that MSM sucks, or rather, has a problem. This is established in the first block of text. The "humor" then comes from the irony of the journalist reporting on the problem with the problem.

I think a similar joke would go as such:-Randall is a drunken fool.-Randall is sad about being a drunken fool.-Randall drinks his tears away

Anon 9:08, I'd agree with you, if I didn't think that the newscaster is supposed to be taken completely seriously - i.e. Mr. Munroe thinks that the mainstream media would actually do this. Hence the strawman label. (The fact that the irony of the comic is not intrinsically funny adds to this interpretation.)

Is... Is Randall's main audience really that interested in the latest news about loud annoying monotone instruments at a sports event? Is it worth using as alt-text? Is he even trying or does he go to a news site and pick a random word to insert as a reference?

I liked this comic until I saw that there was a whole additional panel after the decent, if not predictable, punchline. Also, finally we're not hearing black hat talk about shit he's done, but he did something (however tame).

As for the alt text, did anyone else download the vuvuzelas app just to annoy people?

Same anon as immediately before. I think I meant to write "though predictable" but fucked up.

I realized as I was writing the previous post that this comic wasn't particularly funny even though I laughed before I realized how generic the joke was. People will always laugh at people who are full of themselves getting cut down to size. I think that's why I laughed.

Think about how pathetic Black Hat is. He carries around a bunch of completely useless things just to use them at some point to make a funny. Kinda reminds me of a bearded guy from this xkcd, except even worse.

I can't stand how people on blogs, the news, newpapers, the radio and everywhere else won't shut up about vuvuzelas. I GET IT! THEY MAKE YOUR SOCCER GAME ANNOYING TO WATCH. I was excited to see that Randal didn't make a stupid vuvuzela joke until I read the alt-text. At least the main comic isn't about something no one will remember a year from now.

I got told off last week when I accused somebody here of making a strawman argument! :(

And now Randall is accused of one because he drew a cartoon about something instead of quoting a specific example such as, er, well presumably Google would turn one up. I cant be bothered to look if Carl cant.

So, once again we have: Art: shit; Joke: nonexistent; Writing: crap. So what do we kvetch about? I know! Lets bug Randall for failing to do the research!

And why assume that the MSM *would* do the research? It sees competition from the internet - including forums like this - which consist of an article followed by user comments. It feels threatened by that level of interactivity, something it has hitherto been unable to achieve. So it starts soliciting voces pop for opinions, with the outcome you see.

Now: is that *funny*? Of course not. Would quoting a specific example of the MSM doing this make it *funnier*? Of course not.

"why not use an actual example? It will be funnier by virtue of being true" - But isn't what the guy says in the comic the most oblivious thing he can say? It doesn't matter if no newscaster said it, because they say similar dumb things - every time it snows in England its "send us your photos of snow", as if we don't know what it looks like or if the weather is somehow news. So basically, the most ridiculous thing he can say points out how ridiculous the whole thing is.

All I'm saying is I'm glad you only bitch about another webcomic, instead of writing your own.

as if we don't know what it looks like or if the weather is somehow news.

1. When did they ever say "Send us pictures of your snow so that we can show everybody what snow looks like?" Why are you drawing the conclusion that it's meant to educate people on the appearance of snow?2. How is the weather not news?

Hahaha! Hey gys, 756! Randall made a joke about how "to toot one's horn" can have two meanings... despite that one of those meanings was directly based off of the other! COMEDY GOLD!Oh, oh, and the comic also has someone he doesn't like getting punished! THIS COMIC IS PERFECT! Everyone hates people who boast about their substanceless achievements... unless it's about working for 6 months in NASA, of course!

Oh, oh, and the alt-text: he mentioned how Vuvuzuelas are annoying... for no apparent reason? But it doesn't matter because it's topical and true to my opinions! GOOMHR!

So what does the forum say today:1: 5 posts in and there's already a genuine GOOMHR for Vuvuzuela!2: People pointing out that, since Caltech doesn't grade students like that, Strawman must be extra annoying! Totally not Randall's fault in any way.3: Other people pointing out that Strawman misses the point of education and deserves to be punished. Observant.4: A heckuva lotta discussion on Vuvuzuelas. Like, the majority of the thread. Apparently people really like to let each other know that, yes, they do not like this commonly-disliked instrument. Over and over again.5: "Toot is an innately funny word. Like moist, or wang."

Toot is an innately funny word, and provides the only humour to be found in 757.

Also, as mentioned above, panel 2 is arranged in such a way as to imply that the BRAAAP sound is coming from the person holding the horn and not the horn itself. How can a professional webcomic artist fail at rudimentary comic drawing conventions?

Unless the air horn is so old that the air emitted is too weak to create a sound, forcing the black hat to improvise with his own voice. That actually seems funnier.

OMG I was just reading a Let's Play of Fate/Stay Night on Something Awful where they used sports-themed censorship of one of the ero scenes and people were commenting on the horrific choice of the word "vuvuzelas!" GOOMH Randall!

...or just quit reading the same eroge LP's as me, Randall. Really. I mean it, get out.

Some people have pointed out that it's silly of me to have listed the BBC as a non-mainstream media source. To people living in Britain, yes, you are right. But Randall and I don't live in britain (we live in a house together near boston). Few Americans watch BBC and their coverage is significantly different in style and substance from mainstream american news. Randall definitely would NOT have included CNN, or any other american counterpart to the BBC, in that comic - because it is too mainstream, and BBC isn't, and randall doesn't want people to think he actually watches the real news.

I'll get to the current comic eventually. Let me just ask... what the heck is up with these cuddlefish calling this a forum? Shouldn't they know the difference between a blog and a forum(or, at least, what a forum is)?

"Randall definitely would NOT have included CNN, or any other american counterpart to the BBC, in that comic - because it is too mainstream, and BBC isn't, and randall doesn't want people to think he actually watches the real news."

Huh? We're talking about http://xkcd.com/477/ right? What's the VERY FIRST link namedropped?

Not that this comic was especially funny (or any recent XKCD comics for that matter), but stand-up is chock-full of exaggerations. Grotesques and satire and especially impersonations; heck, even televised comedy, shows like Spitting Image - a genre-defining television classic. Featuring hideous puppets, no less.

Am I a bad person for liking 757? The alt-text is overly topical, but the essential conceit -- it'd be fun to airhorn the kind of person who couches their bragging in humble terms -- is pretty funny.

For example, if someone said to me, "not like it's a big deal, but I do draw a very popular webcomic on the internets." I'd airhorn the fuck out of that guy.

I'm sure, of course, that there's some integral element to the comedic construction that I've missed. But you have to consider that BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZBZZZZZZBZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Yes, the fictional character represents a class of people, and said something that may or may not have been said by real people of that class. But the comic doesn't say claim that it happened, and it's - a joke?

I'm just objecting to 'it would be funnier if the newsguy was saying something that was actually said, even though that would be less funny, because it would be Funny Because It's True (TM).'

if it's a joke, it's a joke which relies on your assumption that this is the sort of thing that actually happens in order for it to be funny.

which is why it's funny when the Daily Show does it--because they are actual clips of people saying actual stupid things--and why Randy isn't--because he's just making up something stupid for someone to say.

you miss the point. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as you are defending XKCD, but nevertheless.

the point is that, since the media is stupid, there are plenty of actual stupid things to choose from to make fun of them. it's pretty easy to do, especially given how incredibly dumb the media is.

if you're going to make something up, it had better be actually legitimately funny--in some way interesting or different. Network was a fictional work that critiqued the media, and it was brilliant. Randy's work is fiction, but it's insipid. it doesn't offer clever commentary. it doesn't really expose anything interesting about the media. it's doing nothing more than saying "the media only reports on public ignorance and doesn't know it's doing it!" and it's doing this in the least clever way possible: by just straight up saying it.

it's not exaggerating any of the media's traits for humor, nor is it exposing anything the media has actually done to expose it to ridicule. it is just making an assertion and passing it off as a joke.

Ugh, I hate the black hat guy comics. He's a character Randal borrowed from Men In Hats and then proceeded to fail at writing. Funnily enough, this is maybe the closest Randal has ever gotten to characterizing him right, although in Men In Hats he would probably just light the guy on fire or something.

and John comes back with an incredibly pathetic zinger! it sure is a good thing I didn't specifically say that comically exaggerating traits for humor--something this comic did not do--is another way to make things funny.

but congratulations on finally grasping the basics of sarcasm! it's an important first step in understanding why XKCD is so incredibly terrible.

the daily show is famous for playing back to back clips of politicians and journalists either contradicting themselves or just being bone shatteringly stupid. his impressions are notoriously bad and no one watches the show for them.

as to my comment above....i think it proves once and for all that i have no idea what i am talking about. I'm surprised more people didn't call me on my epic stupidity. it was incidental to my point, but still: ugh.

first: "the media" refers to, and here I am quoting from dictionary.com's first entry for "media," "the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely." it is, as such, a collective noun. regarding its usage as a collective noun, the American Heritage Dictionary has this to say:

"People also use media with the definite article as a collective term to refer not to the forms of communication themselves so much as the communities and institutions behind them. In this sense, the media means something like "the press." Like other collective nouns, it may take a singular or plural verb depending on the intended meaning. If the point is to emphasize the multifaceted nature of the press, a plural verb may be more appropriate: The media have covered the trial in a variety of formats. Frequently, however, media stands as a singular noun for the aggregate of journalists and broadcasters: The media has not shown much interest in covering the trial. This development of a singular media parallels that of more established words such as data and agenda, which are also Latin plurals that have acquired a singular meaning. The singular medium cannot be used as a collective noun for the press. The sentence No medium has shown much interest in covering the issue, would suggest that the lack of interest is in the means of communication itself rather than in its practitioners. "

the most prevalent form the media takes in Western society tends to be the television, but print, online, and radio journalism are also included in "the media" and tend to have the same problems--it's why they get lumped together in the same collective noun.

thanks for playing "idiots and pedants!" I hope you return again soon!

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Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

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